


Valentine

by hgdoghouse



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hgdoghouse/pseuds/hgdoghouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuart's return to the bosom of CI5 leads to certain revelations being made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valentine

Deep in argument as they made their way down the corridor, they gave Stuart a nod in passing, resuming their debate before he could butt in.

"Look, just because you and I are - "

" - gay?" offered Doyle, in the manner of one trying to be helpful. Entering the rest room first, he homed in on the kettle, gave it a quick shake to ensure it held enough water and plugged it in.

"Not very lyrical, are you?" grumbled Bodie.

"Queer as a three pound note then."

Shaking his head, Bodie gave up. "One thing's for sure, no one's going to accuse you of being romantic."

A look of patient martyrdom on his face, Doyle turned. "All right, you and me are what?" he prompted.

"Having it off, of course." Sidestepping Doyle's retaliatory blow, Bodie's thigh caught the corner of the table with some force; the table rocked under the impact.

The air turned blue.

"Ever heard of the stiff upper lip?" inquired Doyle, before he took a swig from the milk bottle.

"Who's havin' it off then?" demanded an interested voice from the doorway.

Sparing the interloper an unsurprised glance, Bodie's expression soured.

Stuart's cover as the Undercover King of south-east London having been blown beyond hope of recovery, he had been forced to return to the bosom of CI5 a week ago, to the consternation of everyone unfortunate enough to run into him. Even George Cowley was showing signs of strain. Priding himself on leading a team of rugged individualists tamed to his will, he found Stuart to be more individualistic than he remembered. The current lull in criminal activities made it all the more difficult to decide how best to utilise Stuart's talents, Cowley aware that if he attempted to team Stuart with even the rawest recruit he would have a mutiny on his hands.

"Bodie and I," replied Doyle absently, busy warming his cold hands around the kettle. Giving a lush sniff, he delved into the pocket of his sheepskin, which he had thrown over a chair back, searching for a handkerchief.

Unimpressed, Stuart lounged in the doorway. "Is that all?"

"What were you expecting, sex scandals in CI5?" Bodie hadn't taken to Stuart from their first introduction, the seven days since then having done little to suggest he was likely to undergo a change of heart.

"Could do with some interest around the place."

Doyle's lush sniff broke the silence that followed.

"Can't you use a handkerchief?" complained Bodie.

"Course I can, learnt years ago. The trouble is, I haven't got one. It's coming into the warm that does it," Doyle confided. He began to search through the pockets of his partner's jacket. Handkerchief found, he blew his nose with vigour.

"That's mine," exclaimed Bodie indignantly, when the noise had subsided. "It's personal that, using someone else's handkerchief."

"Not half as personal as - "

"Not now," said Bodie with haste. He cast a meaning look in Stuart's direction.

Stuart's look of scepticism intensified. "I'm cream-crackered," he announced. "I dunno how the two of you ‘ave stuck the boredom. Undercover now - "

Bodie yawned and debated the merits of easing Stuart from life's mortal coil.

"It must have been great," agreed Doyle mendaciously. Conscious of outraged blue eyes boring a hole between his shoulder blades, he poured himself some tea, automatically making some for his partner.

"It was while it lasted," agreed Stuart with gloom, his harsh voice grating on Bodie's never-very-susceptible sensibilities. "Two sugars for me, Doyle. I tell you, this place is enough to drive a man crazy."

"That's my tea you've just given him," said Bodie.

"That's all right, you can share mine," said Doyle, settling next to him on the sagging settee.

"Wonderful," sighed Bodie, overtly conscious of the heat radiating from Doyle's sinewy frame. About to point out that there was no need for Doyle to sit virtually in his lap, he almost choked at the sultry look he received, taking refuge in a mouthful of tea.

The remnants of a smile still lurking in his eyes, Doyle contemplated his outstretched legs, wriggling his toes to confirm they were still there.

Having deigned to join them, Stuart gave the tawdry delights of the rest room a condescending look. But as he watched the pint mug being passed between the partners a thoughtful expression crossed his face.

"You two weren't jokin', were you," he said in his usual abrupt manner.

"I never," said Bodie, "make jokes." His train of thought was broken when a hand - not his own - settled on his thigh.

"I can vouch for that," confirmed Doyle. "Ask anyone. Bodie's renowned for being the most humourless bloke on the squad. What weren't we joking about?"

"Having it off. Together," elaborated Stuart. He watched the progress of Doyle's hand inching up Bodie's thigh rather as a rabbit watches a weasel.

"It'd be a bit difficult to have it off by yourself," said Doyle wisely.

"Don't be thick," said Bodie. "That's called having a wan - "

"It makes you go blind," interrupted Doyle with some haste, casting an admonishing look at his partner.

"Deaf, Ray. Deaf."

"Eh?"

"Anyway, I'm in the peak of physical condition - except for my hands." Bodie gave one a sad glance.

"What's wrong with them?" asked Stuart, peering down despite himself.

"Hairy palms," said Doyle.

Stuart straightened where he sat. "Very amusin'," he said with crushing disapproval. His assessing gaze travelled from one man to the other, missing little on the way. "I must say, the pair of you are takin' all this pretty bloody lightly."

"All what?" asked Bodie. Slinging an arm around his partner's shoulders, his hand brushed a stubbled jawline with a lazy familiarity.

"Bein' gay," snapped Stuart, feeling distinctly uneasy as he watched a hairless palm slide beneath Doyle's shirt collar.

"Oh, aye?" said a familiar voice from the doorway. "Perhaps you should have confided that personal detail to me before announcing it to the world in general. You must tell me more," invited Cowley dryly.

" _Me_?" Severely disconcerted, Stuart could only gape at the older man, his tilting mug dribbling tea over the carpet.

"You," confirmed Cowley blandly. "Remind me to have a word with you about discretion while you're with me."

"On whose part?" asked Bodie, perhaps unwisely because it drew Cowley's attention back to him.

"Ah, 3.7. No, don't bother to get up. Stuart, add squad discipline to the list of topics down for discussion. You saw Kuara safely to the airport?" he added, glaring at Bodie.

In Bodie's view the question was redundant. If they hadn't, they would hardly be sitting here drinking tea. On the other hand, there was little value in pointing that out to Cowley.

"Yes, sir." For all the crispness of his reply, his thumb continued an absent stroking of Doyle's collar bone.

"Then we rushed back here," offered Doyle with an ingratiating beam, seemingly unconscious of what Bodie was doing.

"Very commendable," said Cowley dryly, "if not in character. My office, Stuart. You have something to tell me."

"I do?" Lost, Stuart gawped at him, wondering if the Old Man had finally cracked - or didn't he care that two of his men were sitting in front of him, cuddling?

"You do. Then I have a number of things to tell you. You may or may not enjoy them all. My office. You can leave your tea here," Cowley added pointedly.

Stuart opened his mouth, prepared to argue the point. Something he saw in Cowley's eyes made him think the better of it. "Yes, sir."

It was the first time in his week at headquarters that he had accorded Cowley that courtesy. Nodding as if satisfied, Cowley disappeared from the doorway.

Gulping down the last of his tea, Stuart made to follow him, then paused at the doorway, a thoughtful look on his face as he studied the relaxed men sharing the settee.

"Why do I get the feelin' I've been set up?" he said, in the same staccato speech that always made Bodie's hackles rise.

"I can't imagine," he drawled, neither confirming or denying it.

"But Cowley was in on it from the beginning, right?"

"Wrong. But he's a sharp old bastard. And you've been acting like a real prick ever since you got hauled in," Doyle told him bluntly.

Stuart took the news calmly, his bony face relaxing. "I try," he said modestly.

"Congratulations, you succeeded. "Ease up, eh. You've been frightening Bodie."

"I can see that," Stuart agreed. "So it was your idea, Doyle."

"Why can't it have been mine?" asked Bodie affronted.

"Because you're renowned for bein' a very humourless bloke," Stuart reminded him, deadpan. "I'll see you both around." His tuneless whistle receded down the corridor.

Bodie gave an approving nod. "Maybe he'll do," he conceded, in reply to Doyle's look of query.

"I told you he was all right under all that bullshit," Doyle reminded him smugly. A muscular forearm locked under his jaw, tilting his head at an uncomfortable angle.

"Wanna give up now?" Bodie whispered in his ear. A brown curl tickling his cheek, he inhaled pleasurably.

"I'll save that for when we get back to the flat, thanks all the same." Sliding free, Doyle got to his feet. "You're in a skittish mood today. Almost as bad as the Old Man. I wonder how long he'd been standing there?" he added pensively.

"Long enough to see what we were doing," said Bodie. "But Stuart's been getting right up his nose."

"And yours."

"And mine," he agreed. "Whose flat are we using?"

"Does it matter?" asked Doyle, surprised.

Bodie's expression softened and he shook his head, smiling. "No. Not at all." Staring into his tea-stained mug, he frowned. "You know, maybe we shouldn't have set Stuart up like that. About us, I mean. Playing with fire, that is."

Shrugging into his sheepskin, Doyle drew up the collar. "Best method of offence is defence. You taught me that."

"Amongst other things."

Doyle gave a slow, smile of unexpected sweetness. "Amongst other things," he agreed.

"Stop trying to distract me. Isn't it about time we said something to Cowley?" Bodie asked, his padded jacket fastened to the throat.

"You think we need to?"

"Probably not," Bodie conceded, "but maybe we should, all the same. Cover all the angles." Ignoring the lift, he started down the stairs.

"He'd think of a new angle," Doyle pointed out. "If he had anything he wanted to say on the subject, he'd have said it by now. This way, officially, he knows nothing."

"That's my point. It means he can throw us to the wolves over it if it suits him."

"In case it's escaped your notice, he's already done that - several times."

"I hadn't forgotten. But that's not why you don't want to tell him, is it?" Bodie took the last of the stairs three at a time.

"Know all," said Doyle amiably, just managing to beat him to the outside door. He made a sound of anguish as the cold enveloped him.

"So why don't you want to tell him?" pursued Bodie, his breath hanging whitely in the air as he unlocked the car door.

"Because," said Doyle sliding into the comparative warmth of the car with gratitude, "he'd only say I'm not good enough for you."

"You aren't," Bodie pointed out, smiling. "All right, so we won't tell him."

"You won't, you mean. No way was I going to do it. He'd have me on toast."

"I never thought of having you like that. We'd have to watch out for the crumbs."

Doyle groaned, then began to fiddle with the heater to see if it would go any higher. Bodie smacked his hand away.

"Will you stop fiddling with that. I've only just got it fixed after the last time you broke it. I dunno, sometimes I wonder how old you are."

"Look on me as a challenge," cooed Doyle.

"Unnecessary advice, my son. I have done since the first week we were teamed."

"That long?" Doyle gave him a look of genuine surprise.

"No, but I fancied a piece of that delectable little arse the moment it twitched in front of me," admitted Bodie cheerfully.

"And now you've had it."

"Yeah."

Doyle had to grin at the satisfaction in Bodie's voice. "And you've got the cheek to complain that I'm not romantic."

"You're not. Which reminds me," added Bodie, giving the sleet hazing the road a look of pained affront, "do you know what today is?"

"Friday," said Doyle, after a pause for thought. "No point in getting excited though, mate. We're working up in Leeds this weekend."

"The date, dummy."

"February," offered Doyle, not prepared to commit himself any further.

"The fourteenth."

"Gerraway."

"Saint Valentine's day," explained Bodie with monumental patience.

"Oh." The penny dropped. "And you're wondering what I've got for you?"

"I know what you've got for me. What I want to know is where's my card?"

"The same place as mine, I should think - in a shop somewhere. I have got something for you though," Doyle added, as the car drew up outside Bodie's flat.

"You have?" Absurdly touched, Bodie turned to him with an expectant beam.

A well-used bundle of soggy cotton was deposited in his lap.

"Yours, I believe," murmured Doyle.

Bodie's retribution was sweet, but conducted in the privacy of his flat.

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Written August 1985
> 
>  
> 
> Published in _British Takeway 2_


End file.
